Last week we talked miracles. I managed to upset both atheists and Bible-believing Christians, which tells me to persist in this line of thinking.

==> For the standard Christian who gets nervous that I am somehow diminishing God’s magnificence, let me make sure you at least see where I am coming from. In my view, what I’m saying renders God far more glorious and brilliant than the standard interpretation.

At least in the standard evangelical Protestant view, everything that happens is the outcome of God’s will. It’s not as if Nature is chugging along, doing her thing, and then God says, “Whoa whoa whoa, I am going to intervene here to change things so that My desires are satisfied. I was getting a little uncomfortable with how things were going, but eventually I had to act in history, because I just couldn’t take it anymore.”

On the contrary, I think it’s more accurate to say (in the standard evangelical Protestant view) that every single moment of existence in the history of the universe is exactly what God wants to happen, all things (including His preference for a universe where humans have free will) considered.

Now, one of the things God wants (apparently) is for the physical universe to be comprehensible to us. So He made its constituent parts obey (apparently) simple laws, at least in the cases that we have scientifically studied.

So: If God wants, say, Jesus to be born to a virgin mother, there’s no question that He has the power to do it. But I am arguing it would be more impressive if He did so without making the cells involved violate any of the “normal” rules that modern scientists have codified. Yes, it would take a crazy bunch of “coincidences” of the environment (Mary’s DNA, her diet growing up, solar radiation she may have received that caused a mutation…??) in order for this to happen–it’s a miracle, after all–but I think it would actually be more impressive, it would be more an example of God showing off just how ridiculously clever and creative He is, if He could generate such an outcome in the physical universe, without the molecules involved doing anything except obey the “normal” laws of physics.

Consider: If Shakespeare has to tell a wonderful story of court intrigue, is it more or less impressive if he does it in iambic pentameter? If you manage to pull off a feat with more constraints, that makes the achievement more remarkable. It in no way diminishes the grandeur of the Author.

==> For the standard atheist who prides himself on being rational and scientific, let me point something out. Numerous such critics have asked me things like, “But Bob, why do all these miracles only happen thousands of years ago? Why don’t we observe them today, when we can study them?” In response to that, I note:

* I’ve testified that I’ve personally experienced miracles. You guys didn’t say, “Oh gosh, I had always thought miracles were just something that allegedly happened thousands of years ago, and that solidified my atheism. Now that you’re telling me I was wrong, I will be a good Bayesian and update my views.” Of course not. You confidently told me I was nuts and/or erroneously jumping to conclusions about mere coincidences.

* I’ve talked to people who had their faith greatly strengthened when miraculous things happened, such as a loved one having brain cancer suddenly going into remission where the doctors flat out said, “I can’t explain this. But, as of right now, he’s apparently better.” But there’s no point in me even bringing this up; you guys “know” that the people either were lying to me, were confused about what happened, or just got lucky.

* Suppose I could show you an example of a reproducible effect, some action that humans could take that would (say) cure a disease even under conditions of a controlled experiment. Then that would finally give you the evidence of God that you seek, right? No, of course it wouldn’t. You would label the action “modern medicine.”

Now note, I haven’t in the above steps proven that there is a God who loves us and sent His only Son to die for us. No, I’m attempting the much more modest of goal of showing my harsh critics that their position is non-falsifiable. No matter what the evidence is, they would think it lacked any sign of a miracle.

This comment from last week’s discussion was wonderful; it epitomizes the pattern I am describing. According to that commenter, either (A) Jesus’ resurrection cannot be explained by modern science, and so it must not have happened, or (B) Jesus’ resurrection can be explained by modern science, so it is not a miracle. Either way, he “knows” Christianity is false, and he thinks he has come to this conclusion through an empirical investigation. But no, since he has framed the dichotomy in this way, it isn’t an empirical investigation at all; no matter what the evidence is, he already has an “all roads lead to agnosticism” flowchart.

Last thing: I realize it will do little good for me to say it, but let me just make it official: I am NOT here claiming that I have empirically demonstrated anything about the reliability of the gospel accounts. I realize that an agnostic/atheist could understandably scoff at some of the alleged events contained in these books. What I am trying to get the agnostic/atheist to see is that your worldview is far more a priori than you probably realize.

47 Responses to “Another Miraculous Post”

But there’s no point in me even bringing this up; you guys “know” that the people either were lying to me, were confused about what happened, or just got lucky.

You might be interested to note that in various Asian religions, the notion of good luck is quite paramount. Asians tend not to have the same organizational structure around their religions (of course, in Communist China it was strongly discouraged for any organization to exist in competition with the state, and modern China is only a fraction better in that regard). What you see is a lot of talismans, superstitions, prayer wheels, or just single words written… for good luck. Also, things that will bring good fortune (implied to be money, but not guaranteed to be money) in a vague and non-specific way.

I’ve noticed that in Sydney tattoos have become popular, 30 years ago only crusty old sailor had tats, and people who had done a lot of time behind bars. These days about 50% of young sporty people have them, and the trend for a while was animal pictures, and then toward abstract curves (sometimes called “tribal” style) but recently the trend in tattoos is drifting towards written words. Probably I saw Asian characters popping up first, then I noticed Arabic starting to turn up, and then just English phrases appearing.

These days I see a lot of tattoo phrases and sayings, not necessarily specifically religious, but I do often wonder if people are looking for some sort of good luck talisman, or minor prayer to help them.

No, I’m attempting the much more modest of goal of showing my harsh critics that their position is non-falsifiable. No matter what the evidence is, they would think it lacked any sign of a miracle.

Quite true, which is why empiricism is a belief system as well as a philosophy. From a skeptical empiricist point of view, when you come across a statement both non-provable and also non-falsifiable you presume the statement can safely be ignored completely (not necessarily that it is false, although in most cases effectively the same result).

It’s important to note that this ignorance is a deliberate assertion of belief, and also a discipline of efficiency. Given that human brain-power is limited, use it where you are most likely to get a tangible result.

“No, I’m attempting the much more modest of goal of showing my harsh critics that their position is non-falsifiable. No matter what the evidence is, they would think it lacked any sign of a miracle.”

What makes a critic “harsh”? That we think you’ll be subjected to torture if we don’t agree? Anyway…

My position on God is non-falsifiable, as is yours. But my position on so-called “miracles” is falsifiable/empiricist. I have studied many claims of miracles, and the sheer quantity of those claims that have been shown to be actually “natural” phenomena, and that the person claiming a miracle happened was (GASP!) mistaken, has led me to conclude that what people think are miracles, are not actually miracles at all, but good old fashioned natural laws.

I challenge your argument that bible story level miracles still happen today. You’re comparing almost tripping over a toy with Moses waving his hands and parting the red sea, with no dams or any “scientific” mechanism. If I saw bible level miracles, then I would definitely adjust my priors. But guess what? I haven’t seen or heard any credible, verifiable story of anything even remotely resembling the significant miracles of the bible.

You’re so confident and sure that all the events written in the bible are true, yet you still owe your readers an explanation of that huge list of contradictions in the bible I posted years ago, remember?

Also, why can’t you just admit that you are just as belligerant and stubborn as your “harsh atheist critics”? You try to appear as all reasonable and open minded, but gee whizz, Christianity admits to none of that. It requires, and you display, absolute certainty whereby no evidence would sway your opinion. Unless you admit that it is possible for you to become atheist, given the right evidence and logic, then you are in the same boat as them.

As I get older, I do notice a giant list of Biblical contradictions. Pastor scorns me and tells me, ” Who am I to judge Gods Sovereignty.” Well Pastors answer doesn’t quite cut it for me. I think the truth is, none of us were ever suppose to be *biblical authorities*, experts, know it all’s. Instead, the Bible serves 2 purposes. 1, at any given time you can flip open the pages and find guidance for your particular situation and 2, to glorify God. The trouble starts when you want to be the guy that has full knowledge of every word in the Bible and try to create story with no contradictions.

Regarding your claim near the end of your comment, “You try to appear as all reasonable and open minded, but gee whizz, Christianity admits to none of that. It requires, and you display, absolute certainty whereby no evidence would sway your opinion.”

This concept of certainty is not a Biblical mandate or even taught, rather a construct of man, mislead man. The Bible requires the exact opposite, faith. Lots of faith. Faith is not certainty. Know it all’s twist faith into certainty so they can be authorities.

Major, step outside the evangical protestant box. Go even 1 step further and step outside the human construct of trinity. The Bible will begin to make a lot more sense. Live by faith, not by site and allow the Holy Spirit to enter into your life.

And 1 more thing Major, the very end of the Bible:

Revelations 18:
18 I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book; 19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book.

I think many * Christians* especially *experts* neglect this stern warning. Rather than live with the gaps(faith) they fill them in with goobly gook( pseudo certainty) Rather than live with the subservient position, they ignore(take away) as to elevate themselves to par with God.

Maybe it is just a reflection of how Christians are taught to word things (as I went through the same “training”), so as to make it seem like there is open minded reasonableness, but I have to twll you that your post comes off as you being absolutely certain. You are displaying yourself as an authority over not only how a person ought to approach the bible, but also over how it is being approached, with declarations that those who approach it in manner X are doing it wrong.

Almost always, not from you necessarily, I notice that a theist will argue in such a way as to doubt what other theists say, but to believe and be sure about what that particular theist says. You’re telling me to ignore the contradictions and don’t try to be a know it all about the bible, to distrust what other Christians, even experts, say (which is a declaration that you are even more informed about the Bible than experts!), and that I am instead to follow your way.

Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t the certainty per se that I am questioning. It is the fact that Christians who try to convince me to change my mind are always coming across as so certain of their own biblical interpretation.

With all these “don’t listen to others, listen to me” interpretations, and given that we agree that the bible contains many contradictions, can you at least understand why I would be skeptical of what you write?

You tell me not to be a know it all, but is merely rejecting a text (in part) because of many contradictions really being a “know it all” in the bad sense, where I should be more humble about my own ability to know when two statements contradict each other? It is not like I am reading the latest quantum mechanics academic journal and claiming to be able to point out every error. This is much more modest.

I challenge your argument that faith is distinct from certainty. Faith is, IMO, but a means by which we accept and believe an argument. We can feel certain based on faith, and we can feel certain based on reason, logic and evidence. I think Christianity teaches us to be certain based on faith. Do you disagree with that?

For the claim that ALL knowledge is based on faith: if we do some introspection the argument falls apart. An infinite regress of faith in having faith in having faith, etc, results. Couple that with the absolute certainty by which Christians communicate theit idea of truth of the universe, and it is clear that faith and certainty are interconnected in Christianity. If you ask me, the reason faith is called forz is precisely because religion cannot be proved scientifically. Faith, instead of being a vice, or a best efforts method given a lack of knowkedge, actually becomes a virtue. I believe because I CAN believe, so there!

So how would you reconcile God with the action axiom? How can He act, i.e. employ means to reduce uneasiness, when He is omnipotent and there never is any uneasiness?
When all is already best, how can He improve things?

Jan I think I already specifically answered you on this, didn’t I? I said that God created our notion of time as well. Picture Him looking at history as a scroll in front of Him. He creates it all at once, from His perspective, but from people moving from left to right along the scroll, it seems as if His will comes in sequentially.

I don’t think you did, Dr Murphy, but apologies if I missed it.
So are you saying God lives outside of the action axiom, and outside logic itself? I cannot get my head around it. Regardless of the time He created for us, He still had to not like something and then do something about it to change it. E.g. “I don’t like the Earth without a man, why don’t I create Adam”. Otherwise the phrase “God created” doesn’t even mean anything.
Am I missing something?

But take it one step further. Imagine if God is simply someone who figured out all the laws to the universe and obeys them perfectly. Imagine that God is simply God because he does everything correctly. He does not violate natural law, he knows all law and operates in perfect accordance withing it. Can we not have a virgin give birth nowadays? Of course we can. Does God probably know a ‘better’ way? Most assuredly.

I have often said my God is a God of science. At least everything I know about Him is that way. He is also kind, patient, and loving of my fumbling ways. Even here I most likely pale in comparison to the real explanation yet He is patient with me in learning about Him. mentions something about an eternity to actually come to a full knowledge, etc and so on.

Occam’s razor sets a high bar for calling something a miracle. In order for me to believe in a miracle, I would have to see physical laws temporarily violated in a demonstrable way and I couldn’t be the only one that saw it (I’d think I were just going crazy). Something like the sun holding still in the sky or Lake Michigan just parting and holding still for a minute.

Provided there are no concrete cases of temporary violations of physical law, God seems like an unnecessary addition to any theories about the universe. For instance, instead of saying angels push around photons in accordance with Maxwell’s equations, why not just say that photons move according to Maxwell’s equations and get rid of the angels. They are an unnecessary addition.

I’ve been reading the quantum physics series over at lesswrong.com and reading the book “The Fabric of Reality” by David Deutsch and I’ve really come to believe that the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is the correct one. Assuming this is true, how would this impact your view of God if at all?

I think the problem here is that people are debating things that have now way of ever being tested or proven and therefore it’s all about initial biases. There is far more ability to make conclusions about the efficacy of markets and even there it’s all about incoming biases because there are no simple experiments to run that can cause people to abandon belief systems. You even see this in the hard sciences when people debate about string theory, quantum mechanics, or anything else that our technology cannot test yet. At least there, there is some hope that we will be able to test it one day. In religion, that hope doesn’t exist.

Exactly. You can destroy evidentialist and presuppositional apologetics all day long and it does very little good.

On events in the gospels, for example, I have asked many times on here for a believer to explain the lack of a non-Biblical record of the zombies at the end of Matthew. Crickets. The level of self-delusion is epic.

That’s funny because most people try to use logic to prove the existence of god through some kind of first mover argument. Either way, pure logic isn’t going to convince anybody without empirical support.

Bob, I’m not trying to argue religion here, I only aim to talk about linguistics. And while you did exhibit some of the attributes that I aim to point out here, I’m not necessarily implicating you in my question.

My question: why is it that any time that a religious person talks about God, that they must always use very strong adjectives? Some examples: glorious, radiant, all-knowing, magnificent, brilliant, omniscient, omnipotent, etc.

I’ve always been curious about this. Sure, I understand that people have faith, but why is it that those of *faith* are the most ardent when it comes to the usage of *fancy* adjectives?

According to the preceding article, our knowledge of God is derived from the perfections which flow from Him to creatures, which perfections are in God in a more eminent way than in creatures. Now our intellect apprehends them as they are in creatures, and as it apprehends them it signifies them by names. Therefore as to the names applied to God–viz. the perfections which they signify, such as goodness, life and the like, and their mode of signification. As regards what is signified by these names, they belong properly to God, and more properly than they belong to creatures, and are applied primarily to Him. But as regards their mode of signification, they do not properly and strictly apply to God; for their mode of signification applies to creatures.

No matter what the evidence is, they would think it lacked any sign of a miracle.

Dr. Murphy, I am not sure this is true. If the stars in the sky were to align in such a way to spell “God exists,” I think even the most hardcore atheists, of course, after attempting and failing to explain it naturalistically, would have to admit that it at least seemed like a miracle, and in the long run probably would admit it was a miracle.

Bob, I think you misrepresented my point. I reproduce the post below. The point is 1) if resurrection is commonplace and explainable by scientific means then it is not a miracle as I understand that term being a suspension of natural physical laws. Your contention that seems to me to be that even if that is the case it is still a miracle. I think that amounts to special pleading. 2) if the resurrection occurred then you still have a ways to go before using that as proof that Jesus is the son of god. Is the child who falls through the ice and is revived the “son or daughter of god?” Are they imbued with special powers (clearly walking on water not being one of them)? You seem to want to claim that god can work within naturalistic laws to bring about miraculous outcomes but then how would we ever know that god is the cause and not nature? Clearly, a miracle is god’s direct intervention in order to bring about an unnatural outcome. If the outcome is natural can we ascribe it to divine intervention. I don’t think so. You accuse me of wanting to have my cake and eat it too when the burden of proof is on the believer to prove the miracle stories, it is not on me to prove them untrue. I know you get that but it appears you want to smuggle in some alternate meaning of miracle and et voila the god of the Bible exists and Jesus is his son. I’m sorry but I find it ridiculous.

“There are literally books being written by MDs talking about people coming back from being clinically dead. Yes, these well-documented episodes happened in a modern hospital environment, but some of you seem to be claiming that it is literally impossible for a human to be dead and then alive again in the future. No it isn’t.”

Finally, a breakthrough. The “resurrection” of Jesus is commonplace, not special and happens with enough regularity that MDs are writing books about it. Now that is settled – why should anyone, given that resurrection appears to be no big deal, believe that Jesus was god, the son of god or anything in between?

I am glad Bob can freely admit that the basis for Christianity, Jesus atoning sacrifice, was nothing really special and deserves no special consideration.

Also when Bob claims “therefore Jesus is Lord” he isn’t just talking about miracles in general, but specific ones he says happened at a particular place and time. He doesn’t provide any evidence they actually happened.

As Bharat says, if we could see John F Kennedy arise from his tomb, become living flesh and walk around, most of us doubters would agree that’s a miracle. And just because we reject claims like “My favorite flavor is gooseberry and they had gooseberry jam today” is no reason to say we’d reject events like the resurrected JFK.

Perhaps my dissolved sugar example is apposite here. Were the molecular motions in a cup of sweet coffee to occur in a vanishingly unlikely pattern, then the sugar could un-dissolve and form into a lump. In an infinite universe this will probably occur somewhere sometime, which would not be a miracle. If it were to occur at just the time Jesus needed a sugar lump, then it would be a miracle.

That would be a fortuitous coincidence and not a miracle. If he commanded that sugar to reform, and could show that he did so, then it would be a miracle.

We need a supernatural explanation for a phenomena in order to show that it was miraculous – that is the definition of a miracle – an event that suspends natural law at divine command.

The fact that the “miracles” of the Bible can be shown to be non-miracles (the resurrection as Bob himself points out assuming that it actually took place) or cannot be shown to have occurred at all due to lack of evidence (the Red Sea, etc.) then the Christian is left with a book which states that these things occurred with no discernible way to show that they occurred. I’m not a priori saying that miracles CANNOT occur, I’m saying that, so far, there is no good reason to believe they occurred because there is no evidence that they occurred. To beat the drum one more time on this subject, the Bible is not a good source for the attestation of miracles because it was written well after the alleged miracles took place and has an ax to grind – namely, we want converts so we tell stories.

It is a miracle because the universe would have had to be so engineered for this event to happen at the right time. It was commanded, but not at what we see as the moment it occurred. To me it does not matter too much whether this hypothetical miracle occurred because the universe was so engineered, or whether the particles were manipulated by a supernatural force.

This seems to be a separate argument than whether reported miracles actually did occur, for which I agree evidence is very sparse.

If we had reports of a spontaneously appearing sugar cube, I would think it more likely a sleight of hand than a miracle.

Every coincidence is engineered and therefore constitutes a miracle? How do we know it was “commanded?”

If I see Clark Kent take off and fly I would consider that a miracle. When we dig deeper and find that he is from Krypton and the yellow sun gives him power to fly then we have a natural explanation for his differing ability and the suspension of the natural, physical law which applies to everyone else. Not a miracle.

In Jesus’ case we need to ask similar questions. He walks on water. How is that possible? It is claimed that he was a man like you and me, i.e., non-Kryptonian. How can he walk on water when he does not possess superhuman powers? He is god and wills it. Ok. That is a miracle. How do we know the miracle occurred? Some non-eyewitnesses wrote it down 40-60 years later and claimed that it was true. Sorry. Thanks for playing. I don’t buy it. Did Jim Jones walk on water? His followers claimed he did. Did Charles Manson levitate a school bus over a ravine? His followers claimed he did. Are those two instances true? If not, why not? They are attested to by believers. I really hate to keep beating this point to death but the Bible is not a good source for the attestation of the miracle stories therefore we are left with judging the claims based on what we know of the universe and natural law and we must conclude that they are untrue until we are provided with sufficient proof that will justify believe in these claims.

Bob thinks that because I said that even if the miracle stories were true that still doesn’t prove that Jesus is god, the son of god, etc. that I am a priori saying that miracles can never happen therefore Jesus could never be god, son of god, etc. Not really. First, prove the miracle stories true. Second, prove that because the miracle stories are true that Jesus was god, son of god, etc. Just because I don’t believe the first absent proof does not mean that I couldn’t be convinced that if the first were true the second could not also be true. We just need the evidence proving both which we clearly lack.

I guess I just need to keep pounding on examples. Can someone explain the lack of contemporaneous non-Biblical (that is really redundant because the Bible is not contemporaneous) accounts of the zombies who emerged from their tombs post-resurrection as depicted in Matthew? That is a simple one. It supposedly occurred in Jerusalem – which would be considered the cosmopolitan city of the area with more literate people than any place else. Wny no letters, journal entries, government or religious documents attesting to this event? Does anyone thiink for a second that dead people emerging from their graves to walk the streets of Jerusalem would not warrant a recording of the event. Never happened before, never happened since but apparently the people of Jerusalem were absolutely nonplussed by this event. Strange, no?

Suppose I could show you an example of a reproducible effect, some action that humans could take that would (say) cure a disease even under conditions of a controlled experiment. Then that would finally give you the evidence of God that you seek, right? No, of course it wouldn’t. You would label the action “modern medicine.”

-Perhaps, but I’d love to see a real Elijah and the Prophets of Ba’al scenario.
lesswrong.com/lw/i8/religions_claim_to_be_nondisprovable/
Also, of interest:
lesswrong.com/lw/uk/beyond_the_reach_of_god/

(Picture of self beating head against wall…) I can’t say that you’re wrong, only that as an economist one has to be very careful when relying on anecdotal evidence. As a theologian one can accept anecdotal evidence but has to be very careful when generalizing from the specific.

“So: If God wants, say, Jesus to be born to a virgin mother, there’s no question that He has the power to do it. But I am arguing it would be more impressive if He did so without making the cells involved violate any of the “normal” rules that modern scientists have codified. Yes, it would take a crazy bunch of “coincidences” of the environment (Mary’s DNA, her diet growing up, solar radiation she may have received that caused a mutation…??) in order for this to happen–it’s a miracle, after all–but I think it would actually be more impressive, it would be more an example of God showing off just how ridiculously clever and creative He is, if He could generate such an outcome in the physical universe, without the molecules involved doing anything except obey the “normal” laws of physics”

The only problem is that he cannot do this without violating the laws of nature. Wisdom 11:21 says that God ordered the universe according to “measure, number and weight” and that nature could be studied and understood rationally. The catholic church has always emphasized this. A miracle is an extraordinary thing that God does to remind the people of his presence, but the entire point of the miracle is to unilaterally and temporarily deny the laws of nature. In the orthodox tradition even exist a very strong opposition to using miracles at all: Dostoyevsky for example believed that Christian faith lost much because of belief in miracles. this entire pop scientific-religious ‘ecumenism’ is typical of American radical Protestantism which is trying to naturalize and “scientify” religion for almost 150 years. Miracles have meaning in orthodox, traditional Christianity (Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and conservative, high-church Protestant) only against the background of an orderly world with fixed laws that cannot be broken. But, the very definition of a miracle is God’s temporary and extraordinary suspension of natural laws which serves specific theological purpose. If miracles would respect the natural laws they would not be miracles.